The peaches have arrived and I keep wondering where those roses come from in this heat, and the endless varieties of fresh young salad greens, ready to eat, trimmed and washed. Most popular is Mesclun, a spicy, sweet mix with flowers. I see a woman hesitates, asks about the flowers sprinkled in the heaps of green and blue leaves. "Nasturtiums. They're edible, they're sweet." She buys a quarter pound for four dollars.

I remember when mesclun was half that just a few years ago, when the market first came to Union Square. It was a place for upstate and Long Island farmers to sell their products and for ciy folk to get fresh farm goods. The idea took off and now there are farmers markets all over the City, just about any day of the week.

There are all kinds of stands, an abundace of potatoes, all sizes, every color from white to deep purple; breads and muffins; meats: smoked turkey, smoked pheasant sausages, duck breast, free range chicken; cheeses and fresh farm milk, chocolate or coffee flavored, whole milk or low fat. And breads, there's a whole panel truck filled with an amazing variety of breads, mirroring the ethnic origins of the people crowding the market.

SOS - Save Organic Standarts! Right in the middle of the market a young man hands out leaflets, a tract on organic foods. Here, take a look ... and do come BACK, you hear? Take your leaflet right here! (jpg,90k)

The south-west corner of Union Square hosts a bronze of Gandhi striding north. On Saturdays, his shadow shelters a tribe of homeless dogs and cats from a humane organization hoping to save them from being destroyed. The animals are up for adoption, but if that's not possible, please contribute.

I pull out my notebook to gather names of potatoes: Bintje, Red Gold, Estima, French Fingerlings, Russian Banana, Diseree, Augusta - "Flavor beyond your imagination, rich yellow flesh. One of the best European spuds."

On to the greens: radish sprouts, sunflower greens, buckwheat greens, baby lettuce arugula, tat-soi, red mustard, dandelion greens, kale, golden purslane, wild purslane ... all for $3 a quarter pound.

Four dollars will get you dill, cilantro, wild spinach, mint, micro baby lettuce, chrysantemums, sorrel and basil. Those are the ingredients of the fabled mesclun, and ask for some nasturtiums if you don't see them. They get rationed when the supply runs low.

I head home with a sampling of tiny Augusta potatoes and a quarter mesclun. Should make a nice meal with some salmon from Chinatown, but that's another story